November 10, 2018 – Liev Schreiber / Lil Wayne (S44 E5) [THROWBACK REVIEW]

Cold opening – Jeff Sessions Farewell

• The return of Kate’s self-indulgent and prosthetic-heavy Jeff Sessions.
• Cue the usual cutesy moments with Jeff showing us what he has.
• The mention of Mueller here made me preemptively cringe. Let me just say that these skits around how he supposedly was to expose Trump and end his presidency are some of most embarrassing moments in the show’s lifespan and to me, stand out as the moment the show officially threw in the towel on trying to parody the Trump administration in anything but the most superficial and pandering ways possible. Sessions in these skits, as this cutesy elf-like person who wants to be a “real boy” is some of the lowest attempts at humor and satire ever in the show’s whole existence. His skits were the beginning when I realized truly that something went wrong with SNL’s political writing mere months into Trump’s administration, these pieces will truly live in infamy as some of the lowest moments in the show’s satirical history, there’s no parody here, no points to be made, just the lowest forms of pandering and hacky attempts at laughs.
• So far this is the typical boring, overlong, borderline unwatchable cold open that I come to expect all the time from SNL these last twenty seasons all the time with very few minor exceptions each season.
• (*sigh*) De Niro returns as Mueller to thunderous applause that goes on endlessly.
• Already, De Niro fucks up several lines, is glued to his cue cards, tripping over them left and right and delivers them with his usual comedy-killing and halting delivery, basically sleepwalking through his lines and performance. Why is this guy supposedly a ”legendary” actor?
• Back to the sketch, as I really only have to say one thing: what am I watching? The hell is this? Where are the jokes? The laughs? The direction? Where is the supposed comedic through line in this aimless, laughless, overlong, anger-inducing hellscape?
• The tradition of De Niro having no idea how to say LFNY continues. 

Rating: *

Monologue

• Already, Liev has a warm and likable presence, even when you could tell he’s very nervous, yet as we will see in the post-Update half, that nervousness will be completely vanished by then.
• Some sweet words from Liev at the very beginning, the genuine joy and humility that he’s displaying already makes me want to root for him.
• Very good monologue in general, and Liev came off great in here.

Rating: ****

Good Day Denver 

• One of the several Seiday-written ”LOL dirty names!” skits from this era.
• Some funny escalation with the wrong graphic being displayed, I’m getting some cheap laughs even with the dumb premise.
• Liev is very solid in this and is elevating a rather harmless-yet-overdone material.
• Hilarious brief sketch-stealing appearance from Kate, too bad the show barely uses her sketch-saving abilities anymore and leans into the worst traits in her performances. which really started to show up in those wacky “Kaidy” pieces starting with this season.
• An average skit overall, not bad nor that great.

Rating: ***

Unity Song

• An interesting concept, and I do recall this piece being good and a highlight from the shaky first half of this episode.
• Bowen Yang can be seen behind Cecily at the beginning. Considering that Bowen is one of the very few SNL performers that I knew pre-SNL (Sarah Sherman and James Austin Johnson are the other ones that I knew pre-SNL and that was for about a year before joining the show) , and how much he’ll get to kill it in the cast after being added in the very next season, with many great Update commentaries (Iceberg, Bottle Boi, Chen Bia) and memorable absurdist skits (SoulCycle, Choking Poster), it feels so great to see a brief glimpse of him here.
• The wet jeans part is very relatable, and damn how I hate when that happens.
• A great “I can’t watch a book” bit from Cecily.
• Some catchy melody to this piece.
• Overall, a solid and rare fun apolitical piece that aims to truly make us come together in hating certain things that are relatable, I enjoyed this more after a rewatch.

Rating: ****

Paranormal Encounter

• Here comes our weekly Kate vanity piece that would go on forever because it’s her.
• Am I supposed to be laughing right now at the umpteenth time that Kate discloses her experience with alien abduction?? The magic of the original legendary sketch is sadly LONG gone by this point.
• You could really decipher the copy-and-paste format of this once-great sketch, with Cecily as the usual woman with Kate’s Colleeen, the host in the middle, Aidy in her original role, and Mikey with a good ole dose of explaining in place of Bobby.
• The sketch keeps going on and on and on and on….
• Boring, boring, BORING!!! I’m NOT caring for the 348346 euphemisms for the female genitalia in this. It’s disrespectful to women, tasteless, low-brow, repetitive, and not to mention, UNFUNNY.
• Mercifully, this is over. But this is not the last embarrassment I’ll have to endure tonight.

Rating: *

Booty Kings

• A nice inclusion of Lil Wayne, yet I tend to zone out of these Pete music videos.
• A very welcomed cameo by Future.
• This piece seems to be a general music video instead of a comedic piece that parodies a certain genre of music, like the fantastic Slow piece from Adam Driver’s legendary hosting stint from 45, but I’m enjoying it nonetheless.
• And this short just ended, it was decent and fun-feeling if not nowhere near as strong as some other musical shorts from this era.

Rating: ***

Weekend Update

• Decent jokes about the midterm elections. And we get the usual sharp and funny commentary from Colin and Michael.
• An interesting time capsule with Acosta ejection from the White House being parodied on Update.
• I got a laugh from Cecily’s impression of the White House staffer that ejected Acosta.
• Aaand my laughs are now reduced to none as this commentary keeps going on & repeating the same gaga over and over.
• How many times am I supposed to laugh at the endless repetition of the gag?! This Update is a fucking mess.
• Thankfully, Cecily’s gone. Yet, she’ll not be the last anger-inducing guest on Update tonight.
• NO! We now get Dan Crenshaw to respond to the ”controversy” when Pete made that dumb joke about him.
• Some lame attempts at sounding cool from Crenshaw, and it’s probably for the better that Pete rescinded his apology later on. As much as his joke was lame and uncalled for, to apologize over anything is more idiotic, Pete clearly did not mean to poke fun at Crenshaw’s war injury. And this defense of Pete is coming from a person that generally loathed the a lot of what he performed on the show.
• Mercifully, this is over. While I generally view the current era of Update as a golden one, generally strong, sharp, and filled with solid commentaries most of the time, Updates like this one, with pandering and self-amusement, as rare and few as they are in a 21 editions per season, leave a sour taste in one’s mouth and flat-out pisses me off with all the time that’s wasted. The weakest Update from this season by FAR.

Rating: **1/2

The Poddys

• I do recall this skit being solid, as I mentioned it in my Jonathan Majors episode. Still, I do not remember it much aside from a couple of moments.
• Some convincing makeup on Liev & Cecily.
• A surprisingly very funny and accurate impression of Michael Barabado from Liev.
• Seeing Cevily’s Sarah Koeing here is reminding me of the fantastic Serial piece she did in season 40.
• A funny parody of those ”resistance” podcasts.
• Man, Liev’s lines throughout this are absolutely PRICELESS, he’s having me on the floor right now.
• Kate: ”first of all, I got to thank the Nazies, without them I wouldn’t be here”.
• A solid Marc Maron vocal impression from Alex, and once more, great makeup job.
• Some funny lines from Alex’s Marc, and these capture his humor style perfectly.
• The Alf ASMR part made me laugh out loud just now.
• This a laugh riot so far, I’m getting most of my laughs tonight in this skit by far.
• This just keeps getting better and better, this skit is FILLED with brilliant, sharp, and dry humor throughout.
• Overall, an absolutely brilliant sketch, even better than I remember it being, and this is now my all-time favorite awards skit. Funny enough, the only other recent awards skit that I recall being as strong as this one is the Barfly Awards skit from Maya Rudolph’s episode from season 46. I do recall it being a definitive top 10 in that year for me.

Rating: *****

House Hunters

• Ah, here comes the centerpiece of tonight’s episode and a legendary SNL piece in general.
• In that wig, Liev looks almost exactly like Jason Bateman. Also, I’m loving the surprisingly-fitting pairing of him and Leslie as a couple as the show could’ve gone the predictable route and had either Cecily or Kate instead of her.
• I never knew that House Hunters is a real show as I NEVER watch reality TV or anything outside of few shows and documentary channels. Yet, that doesn’t negate the fact that I, and MANY others consider this piece an ALL-TIME SNL highlight and an absurdist masterpiece of the highest order. Not to mention that truly great parodies are the ones that does not need us to be familiar with what it’s parodied in order to get the jokes. An SNL example of that could be the classic Bob Dole/The Real World runner in John Goodman’s Season 21 episode.
• I’m loving how this short is playing the premise and the outlandish otherworldly different houses so straight and normal. A thing SNL should do more, instead of over-explaining and REACTING in skits that plague the current era. An era that’s actually pretty good and creative in general. As this is ”my” era if you know what I mean, and I want it to be as good as it could.
• A house with just drawings of windows? and one being five cents over budget? This is absolutely priceless so far.
• I’m loving the running bit with Liev constantly bringing up his man cave.
• The bit with the totally normal vertical and seemingly non-ending floor is a hilarious visual from this piece, and the moment I realized that I’m watching a legendary SNL piece.
• Ah, now we get a house with an actual cave.
• A memorable bit with the invisible house and the cat above it.
• Heidi running around the house made me burst out laughing hard.
• The absurdist, yet subtle escalation is downright FANTASTIC.
• A funny yet creepy brief bit with Pete being locked in the house for some reason, Liev gives a great look as he closes the door.
• Overall, an SNL masterpiece. The sheer creativity, ambition, and execution is FLAWLESS. An all-time high for SNL.

Rating: *****

Brothers

• IMMEDIATELY, we get a huge laugh with Beck & Kyle’s intro into this skit.
• This an another skit I recall liking a lot in the past, but not deeming it five-star worthy back in the day. This is also another skit from this season that depends heavily on slapstick humor, like the The Duel and Etiquette Coach skits from later this season. An interesting focus that I recall the show somewhat abandoning by season 46. Yet, in conversation with John, a fellow SNL reviewer, and I’m paraphrasing him here, I think Covid played a big part in the sudden abandonment of full-on slapstick humor, for obvious reasons.
• Very funny detail on Beck and Kyle here, with their shirts being of Looney Tunes characters, and as a 2000s child, this brings up warm memories of my childhood.
• Pretty strong straight man performance from Liev & I love the look of his character.
• Boy, This dance-off is freaking killing with me and the audience. A priceless visual.
• Oooh, I’m LOVING the bit with Beck claiming that Kyle was born a mistake, due to Liev and Cecily originally not planning having him. Some solid work from Kyle here.
• Funny scene with Liev shutting them up by just spraying them with water, again a blast from my childhood follies right here.
• Aidy and Cecily are clearly struggling hard not to break, and I cannot blame them one bit.
• Overall, this was another laugh riot, and our THIRD five-stars sketch of the night. What a turnaround this episode made, an outstanding effort so far.

Rating: *****

Dave’s Outside the Women’s Bathroom

• Right out of the gate, an absolutely hilarious & random premise.
• Liev is coming off HILARIOUS, his delivery, expressions, subtleties in movement and speech are killing with me and the audience.
• Liev’s questioning of Aidy not flushing is priceless.
• Liev: ”Hey I’m Dave. I’ll see you after ok?”
• A great addition of Heidi as Dave’s worried girlfriend. A role with subtle melancholy that Heidi can play in her sleep at this point. A testament to her great talents as a performer.
• Liev: ”Uh-oh, sound of the flush, that means it’s time for our next guest”.
• A scene-stealing brief bit with Leslie, and a killer glare toward the camera.
• The very short top 20 bit is hilarious, once more helped by Liev’s flawless delivery throughout the sketch.
• And we’re out. A perfectly-timed sketch, with hilariously absurdist concept, many fantastic lines to quote from, a great Liev Schriber performance, and a solid escalation. A season highlight and a favorite of mine from this era, simply brilliant.
  

Rating: *****

Segments Ranked From Best to Worst

House Hunters

Dave’s Outside the Women’s Bathroom

The Poddys

Brothers

Monologue

Unity Song

Good Day Denver

Booty Kings

Weekend Update

Jeff Sessions Farewell

Paranormal Encounter

Final Thoughts:-

• A great episode that’s always been amongst the most fascinating of this era, mainly due to the incredible post-Update recovery with FOUR five-stars sketches that are highly-regarded and beloved fan-favorites (chief amongst them, House Hunters, a particularly standout SNL piece).
• The episode had a shaky and unenergetic first half despite the likable charm and warmth that Liev brought in it, and the few good pieces in it, then, Update ends, and we get a unique, premise-driven, strong, conceptual, and brilliant second half (the other recent episode from this era with a conceptual, unique, premise-driven, solid, one-off pieces is the Sandra Oh episode from this same season, the Malek and DeBose episodes in 47 also have that conceptual and original sketch concept feel throughout) starting with The Poddys, a strong and hidden gem which became a new favorite of mine, and the legendary House Hunters piece, till we finish off with two very fun and loose live sketches that feature Liev’s best performances of the whole night.
• Liev Schreiber was such a great host tonight. I remember being so surprised by how funny he turned out to be. While I always liked him as an actor, yet I thought of him as a thoughtful and very cultured and serious man. I could not believe how much he had me in tears throughout the episode, and my biggest laughs were mainly from him. I hope he can host again soon.